A Berry Sweet Celebration!
This past Wednesday, Hotel Dieu Shaver Foundation hosted a Strawberry Social in the Mountainview Courtyard.
The event celebrated our generous supporters and allowed guests to explore interactive stations learning about specialized tools like the Neubie, Sara Stedy, AAC devices, BITS, and more, seeing firsthand how their support transforms care at HDS.
The highlight was hearing from our wonderful speakers:
🍓 Spencer – an incredible woman who inspired the crowd by recounting her experience as a patient at Hotel Dieu Shaver after suffering a devastating hemorrhagic stroke. “When I was admitted, I couldn’t walk or use my left arm. I had difficulty speaking, debilitating vertigo, double vision and vision loss, and no clear sense of what recovery would look like. Over those first nine weeks, my family heard everything from “She’ll make a full recovery because of her age” to “She’ll require full-time nursing care and will never be independent again.” That uncertainty was terrifying. But at Hotel Dieu Shaver, rehabilitation started on day one. Physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and rehab assistants all rallied around me with unwavering support. By my second week, I was up from my wheelchair and using a walker to complete a lap here in the Courtyard. The trauma of waking up in a body that no longer works is difficult to put into words. I went from falling asleep in the back of an ambulance to waking up in a hospital bed in the blink of an eye. I woke up to find myself in a body with legs that didn’t work, eyes that couldn’t see, and a mouth that couldn’t speak the words I wanted it to. My experience of stroke was, and continues to be, one where I feel like myself inside my mind, but I am unable to do the things I think about. In just a couple of hours, the neuropathways that I had spent 35 years building and strengthening vanished. The ones that knew how to walk, how to talk, how to see. They were gone, and I had no muscle memory to help me relearn them. Looking back, I could not be more grateful for the holistic, human approach to healing that happens here at Hotel Dieu Shaver. The physical, and emotional support that I have received here has been unmatched. Thanks to the incredible team at Hotel Dieu Shaver, I didn’t just relearn how to use utensils or speak clearly, I reclaimed my independence. I walk. I drive. I live fully again.”
🍓 Julie - a dedicated physiotherapist who brought the room to tears speaking passionately about the meaningful impact she and her colleagues are able to have on patients each and every day. “For many of us here, our work is so much more that just a job, it’s a passion the goes beyond the level of compassion one would expect from a health care worker. We have opportunity after opportunity to impact peoples lives in a meaningful way. Imagine that your life is suddenly changed forever, by an unexpected and tragic event, that leaves you unable to move, unable to process your thoughts and perhaps even unable to communicate your needs. Life as you know it, may never be the same and you have no certainty about your health, your ability to function and care for yourself, and even speak with your loved ones. Knowing that I can sit in front of you, on your first day here, look into your eyes and confidently tell you that you are in the right place… that’s what motivates me to get up in the morning!
Because of our generous donors, we are able to provide the incredible team at HDS with the tools they need to rebuild lives & renew hope for patients, like Spencer, and countless others.
